Talk about timing.
Two years ago, publisher Michael Maxsenti changed the name of his Orange County visitor guide to OC-The Place.
A few months later, Fox’s “The O.C.” launched.
The county “now has become internationally known,” Maxsenti said. “It has dramatically changed our level of awareness.”
Maxsenti has been ramping up the Newport Beach-based guide. Earlier this year, he upped circulation by 30% to about 30,000 copies and expanded availability to South County hotels and visitor centers.
Before, the publication was given to hotels and other spots in North County around Anaheim’s tourism hub. OC-The Place is free to hotel guests.
“Prior to January, we solely were in the 714 area code,” Maxsenti said. “We expanded into 949 as of Jan. 1. We added 70 hotels in the South County market” and John Wayne Airport.
The reason behind the push: “Our ad-vertisers had been asking us to,” he said.
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| OC-The Place visitor guide: expanded to South County |
In the past six months, the guide picked up at least 12 advertisers, in-cluding the Los Angeles Zoo, Anaheim Plaza and Anaheim Golf Course.
Other advertisers include OC’s surf companies, such as Huntington Beach-based Quiksilver Inc., one of the guide’s “mainstay advertisers,” Maxsenti said.
The company came onboard in 2004, when Maxsenti tweaked the publication to play up OC’s surf roots. After the 2001 terrorist attacks, the OC tourism industry struggled and forced a change, he said.
There were fewer European and Asian tourists and more young Americans in a 500-mile drive market who identified with “surf culture and X Games,” Maxsenti said.
These days, Maxsenti said OC is seeing a return of Asians and Europeans. Many likely are drawn by the lifestyle played up in shows such as “The O.C.”
The guide, which includes write-ups on places in OC, maps, restaurants and ads, now goes to about 200 hotels and points of interest throughout the county.
The guide originally started out in 1987 as “Anaheim This Week” and has evolved as OC has changed, Maxsenti said.
He said he plans to target OC’s shopping centers. The publication has had interest from The Irvine Company’s shopping centers, including Fashion Island and the Irvine Spectrum Center, he said.
Mechanics Work on Blue Book
Costa Mesa-based Honest Mechanics is busy wrapping up work for client Kelly Blue Book of Irvine.
The campaign, which focuses on auto dealers, is set to launch by May or June, according to Dominic Symes, president of Honest Mechanics.
The OC shop also is busy working on marketing for Santa Monica-based Fat Burger Corp., he said.
Meanwhile, the shop is going after more work, according to Symes.
“The new business reviews are out there,” he said. “We are getting more and more invitations.”
The shop is one of many that touts low overhead so it can cater to clients with varying budgets.
But Honest Mechanics won’t just go after anything, Symes said.
The review process can bring a lot of “unnecessary pain” as clients are placing more demands on shops, he said. In some cases, shops walk,like when Deutsch in Los Angeles opted out of the review for Cypress-based Mitsubishi Motors North America Inc.
Making Up Lost Ground
Newport Beach Estey-Hoover Advertising and Public Relations has countered an account loss in 2004 with some wins.
The shop has picked up at least four accounts since 2004, including Eagle Roofing Products, CPS Security Systems, Sona MedSpa International Inc. and Hampton Products International, according to Dan Hoover, Estey-Hoover president.
The wins helped offset the loss of Irvine-based eMachines Inc., which in 2004 was bought by Gateway Inc., which since moved from San Diego County to Irvine.
“Gateway honored the rest of our contract even after the acquisition,” Hoover said.
Estey-Hoover fought hard to win the accounts, which involved competitive reviews.
Doner: More People, More Space
Doner in Newport Beach is looking to build on momentum it saw last year.
The local office of the Michigan-based shop upped its staff by 5% to 120 people and took over an additional floor.
Some of the shop’s newest accounts include Anaheim-based Pacific Sunwear of California Inc.’s d.e.m.o. stores, Black and Decker Corp.’s Baldwin Hardware and the Los Angeles region for Time Warner Cable.
